


Polis

by eternaleponine



Series: The 100 Clexa Reunion [7]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa and Clarke go out into the real world, and Lexa shows Clarke a little of what her people are like when they are not at war.</p>
<p>Follows <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5389040">We Are All Grounders</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polis

Lexa felt Clarke's hesitation as they approached the door that would lead them out into the world beyond these walls. The real world, where Lexa did not – could not – control what happened, at least not entirely. The world that would react as it would to Clarke's presence – to Clarke's presence _at her side_ \- and there was nothing she could do about it, one way or another. 

The backs of their hands brushed, and Lexa realized then that she hadn't put her gloves on. She'd put on very little in the way of armor, and no warpaint, but that was intentional. She was _home_ , and they were at least nominally at peace; she did not need that here. But her gloves... it was cold. She ought to be wearing them. So should Clarke, for that matter, but her hands were also bare.

She let their hands touch again, and could not help the shiver that it sent through her. She shouldn't let herself be so distracted, but sometimes she lapsed into Lexa the Girl, who had loved and lost and found herself suddenly, inexplicably in love again when she'd thought she'd shut that part of herself down, turned it off and rendered herself numb, unfeeling, only to have a girl - _this_ girl – fall from the sky and start to break down all of the walls that she had so carefully constructed with a single glance, a single word.

Lexa the Commander knew that she should not let it happen, that when she'd been given the choice by the Mountain Men to walk away with her people and a promise (that she was sure they never would have kept once they'd had their way) that she should have taken that opportunity to leave Clarke of the Sky People behind, to shut down her heart once and for all for the good of herself and her people. 

Now she was trying to find a way to reconcile both, and lose neither, and if making peace between the twelve clans had seemed like an impossible task, this one seemed only slightly more realistic. But she'd done the former, hadn't she? And it still held (didn't it?) so there had to be a way to make this work.

"Clarke," she said, because the sky girl's name felt like it was always on the tip of her tongue. 

Clarke turned and looked at her expectantly. There was a stillness to her presence, a quiet that she'd rarely shown before, and in a way Lexa envied it because she felt anything but quiet, anything but still, and how was it fair that when her walls were breaking, broken, her mask cracked and knocked askew, that Clarke could look at her as if nothing she said could faze her?

Maybe it was just a mask that she wore. Maybe she'd finally learned how to hide what she was feeling. Maybe she was steeling herself for whatever they were about to face. 

Lexa laced her fingers through Clarke's, her right through Clarke's left, leaving them both vulnerable with their dominant hands tangled together, but there was nothing to threatened them here, nothing they might have to defend themselves again. 

Clarke glanced down, and Lexa saw the flicker of surprise before the hand she held tightened around hers, squeezing gently. "You said that Polis would change the way I see your people," she said. "Show me."

Lexa nodded, but still hesitated to open the door. She lifted Clarke's hand and pressed her lips to the back of it before letting go, her eyes never leaving Clarke's, and she wasn't sure what she saw there, exactly, but she thought, was pretty sure, that it was something good, something warm, something that she could come back to at the end of the day and feel like she'd come home.

Which made it dangerous, and something she shouldn't trust no matter how much she wanted to. 

Still, she held on a moment longer, then let Clarke's hand go and pulled open the door.

She'd purposely taken them out a side door, rather than the front, wanting to give Clarke at least a few moments before they were seen and recognized. She ought to have offered Clarke the opportunity to disguise herself, at least a little, to avoid the attention they would draw as best they could, but it was too late now. 

"This way," Lexa said, and led Clarke down a path – it once would have been a street, but the pavement had long since crumbled to nothing – and toward the marketplace where food and goods were being traded. It was the last of the autumn harvest, she assumed, and soon there would be fewer people out to trade what they had for what they needed, but at least Clarke would have the opportunity to see. 

She watched Clarke more than the people around her, wanting to see her reactions as she took in the people looking at the various stalls, and the contents of the stalls themselves. Food was food, and perhaps not that interesting (although maybe it was, given Clarke's reaction to honey earlier) but there was also clothing, weapons... and art. Jewelry and other functional items, but some of it was just art for art's sake, she supposed. Things to be hung on walls. There were also more practical items, like woven or patchworked blankets, which would keep a person warm in addition to being nice to look at.

Clarke looked at her finally, her eyes wide. "You..." Her mouth quirked into something like a smile. "I guess you did tell me," she said. "In a way."

"In a way," Lexa agreed. "We do what we must do to survive, but that isn't all that life is. After all, shouldn't life be about more than just surviving?"

Clarke really smiled then, hearing her own words echoed back to her, recalling the moment when it – when _this_ \- had all really began. For a second, Lexa thought that Clarke might decide to recreate it, here and now, and she wasn't sure what she would do if she tried. She couldn't allow it... certainly she couldn't allow it... but could she really stand to push her away, even a little?

The moment was interrupted, though, by a ball skittering between them, quickly pursued by a gang of children who were playing some sort of game that Lexa suspected did not have much in the way of rules, or that had rules that were made up as they went along. She tried to remember if she had ever played like that, but the earliest years of her life had become blurred by everything that had happened since. 

She sidestepped quickly and put her foot on the ball to stop it, and watched as the kids came to a stumbling halt in front of her. One of them started to ask for the ball back, then stopped abruptly as he actually looked at her and parsed who she was. " _Heda_."

His two companions' eyes widened, and they echoed the word. Then one of them, the smallest, turned and saw Clarke, and her eyes went even wider. " _Wanheda,_ " she hissed, nudging her friend. 

Lexa saw Clarke tense, and she looked at the children sternly. " _You can have your ball back if you can take it,_ " she told them. 

One of them – the oldest, who also seemed to be the ringleader – tried to reach own, but Lexa gently nudged him back. " _Not like that._ "

He pursed his lips, then shifted, trying to figure out what angle he could approach to dislodge the ball from under Lexa's foot. But as soon as he tried, she moved, and soon it was three against one and they had her surrounded. She darted to one side, then kicked to the other, and the fake was enough to throw them off as the ball went skittering in Clarke's direction. 

From the look on Clarke's face, one would have thought she'd just sent some sort of explosive round her way, but she managed to trap the ball with her foot, and kick it back to Lexa, who had broken free when the children had headed for Clarke instead. When she tried to return it once again to Clarke, though, she wasn't quite fast enough, and the kids claimed the ball back, darting off back down another path with a wave.

Lexa grinned at Clarke, at her flushed cheeks and laughing eyes, and she knew that the look wouldn't last, that reality would set in in another few minutes, and it was all she could do not to take advantage of this momentary lapse in the harshness of the world, to kiss her right then and there and who cared who saw or what they thought? And if she was only Lexa the Girl and not Lexa the Commander, she would have. If Clarke was only Clarke and not Wanheda, she would have. But she wasn't, and Clarke was, and they could not afford even a moment's recklessness.

The moment passed, and Clarke's smile with it. It was replaced by a look that Lexa couldn't quite figure out. The sort of look that you give someone when you're trying to figure _them_ out, but you don't want to give away that that's what you're doing. Except Clarke wasn't very good at hiding what she was thinking or feeling, not yet, and that was one of the things that Lexa liked – loved – about her. Yes, there was a great deal she had to learn about being a leader, but the fact that she still felt things, that sometimes, at least, she was an open book... It might get her killed, but at the same time, it made her likeable. Relatable. Lexa knew that she wasn't particularly either of those things.

"What are you thinking?" she asked gently, when the looks continued as sidelong glances even as they continued to walk. 

"I'm trying to imagine you as a child," Clarke said. "I can't."

Lexa looked at her with a faint smile. "Do you think I just appeared fully grown one day?" she asked. "That when the last Commander died, I just came from nowhere to take the role?"

"No," Clarke said. "I know you had to be young once. I know you had to have been a child, with a family. I just... can't picture it." 

Lexa sat on the edge of what had once been a fountain, but it had long since dried up, and only filled with water when it rained. They made an effort to keep it dry, anyway, so the water didn't stagnate and let mosquitoes breed, which was to be avoided not only because they were annoying but also because they brought disease. Not that it was a concern at this time of year.

"So ask," she said. "Ask and I will answer."

Clarke sat too, close enough that their knees bumped against each other as they turned slightly inward to be better able to see each other. "How old are you?"

"I don't know," Lexa said, because that was the truth. "Older than I should be."

Clarke's forehead furrowed. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. 

"I mean that we grow up fast, but... I had to grow up faster than most, once I was called."

"When was that?" Clarke asked. "And why don't you know how old you are?"

"We don't keep track of those things," Lexa said. "I know that I was born in the summer, but I don't know how many summers ago. I know that I've been Commander for about four years now."

Clarke nodded. "Where are your parents?"

"Dead. My father first, and then my mother."

"How old—" Clarke stopped herself. "Was that a long time ago?"

"Yes," Lexa said. "My father was killed when I was quite young. I do not remember much of him, although one of the first things that I remember at all was him putting a knife into my hand."

"That's one of your _first_ memories?" Clarke asked, staring. "But—"

"But what?"

"But usually first memories are from when you're two or three," Clarke said.

Lexa shrugged. "Yes? So?"

"So..." Clarke frowned, shook her head. "How can you give a child who only just learned how to walk a knife?"

"I had to start learning sometime," Lexa said. "Even if my fate was not to become a warrior, I would need to know how to defend myself, and sooner rather than later. Those who did not know... things generally ended young for them. And badly." _Like my mother,_ she thought, and then made herself say it, "Like my mother."

"She wasn't a warrior?"

"No," Lexa said. "She wasn't. She was... she did a little of everything, I think. She was taken by the Mountain Men. She was one of the few that we ever got a body back for." And that was her clearest memory of her mother, the one that came to mind first when she thought of her, and it ached thinking about it, about how all of those years of memories that had built up before that day had faded, leaving only scraps, but that day was clear. 

"Where you still very young then?" Clarke asked.

"No," Lexa said. "You cannot be very young when you are alone in the world."

"That's..." Clarke frowned. "That's not what I mean."

"It is nevertheless true," Lexa said. "But no, I was not as young then. I was old enough that even if I still had one or both of my parents alive, if I planned to become a warrior I would need to become a second. If my father had lived, perhaps he would have continued to train me; I don't know. But that day – the day my mother's body burned – that was the day that Anya chose me."

"So she looked after you after that?"

"As much as I needed looking after, yes," Lexa said.

"Did you have siblings?"

"No."

"Do you miss them?" Clarke asked. "Your parents?"

Lexa frowned. "No," she said. "Not much." Which made her sound cold, heartless, and maybe she was. She was sure that Clarke would think so. But it was different for them, different for her. "I miss Anya." Because she'd had more time with her than she had with her parents, or the same as she'd had with her mother, roughly, but remembered a lot more of it.

Clarke winced. "I'm sorry."

"You did not kill her," Lexa replied. 

"No, but..." She looked at Lexa, and for a second she thought that Clarke was going to take her hand, but at the last second she curled her fingers back in, like she couldn't bear to actually reach out, or maybe she didn't want to have to deal with Lexa pulling away when she said whatever she was going to say. "What I told you... the first time we met... it wasn't all of the truth."

Of course it wasn't. Lexa hadn't expected that it was. Clarke had told her the version of the story that best suited her own needs. "What happened?"

"We escaped the mountain together. She was going to bring me back to you, as a prize. Something about not being able to go back to you empty-handed. Then I... we fought, and she became my prisoner, and I was taking her back to my people. But when we got there... or almost there... I let her go. We'd talked, and she'd agreed to take a message back to you, asking you to meet with me. But before she could get away, they – my people – saw us at the edge of camp, and they shot her. She died... I was at her side, as I said. But her death was at least partially my fault. If I hadn't—"

"There is no point in 'what if' and 'if only'," Lexa said, her tone sharper, maybe, than she'd intended, but she doubted that Clarke would hold it against her. At least the version of the story that Clarke had originally told her held the essence of the truth. If the details told her there was more to the story... there was nothing she could do about it now. It didn't change the fact that Anya was dead. And it didn't change how she felt about Clarke. Maybe it should, but it didn't. Could she honestly say, if their roles had been switched, that she would have told a different story? Clarke had done what she needed to do, said what she needed to say, to protect her people.

"What else?" she asked. "What else do you want to know?"

"I don't know," Clarke said, seeming startled by the question which had come out like a demand. "I..." Then she did take Lexa's hand, holding it tight, and Lexa gripped hers in return until their bones grated against each other, their knuckles white. "If I am going to be here... if this is going to work... I need to learn."

"What?"

"About your people. About... you. I need to know."

"So ask."

"I don't even know where to start."

Lexa loosened her grip on Clarke's hand, taking it instead between her palms. "When you think of what you want to know, you can ask, as long as it is an appropriate time to do so." 

Clarke nodded, and Lexa tried to let her hand go, but she wouldn't release it. "You... you should learn about my people, too."

Lexa looked down at their joined hands, at Clarke's fingers wrapped around her wrist to keep her from moving away. She could break the grip easily, but she chose not to. "What do you want me to know?"

"That we didn't come looking for war. That we are..." Clarke stopped. "They are..." But she didn't finish, and Lexa didn't push for her to. Maybe Clarke didn't feel like she could speak for the Sky People anymore, having walked away. Maybe she realized that anything she said might not still be true, and the only way that she could find out was to go back, which she wasn't ready to do. 

"It's all right," Lexa said softly. "We do not need to say everything that needs to be said today."

Clarke nodded, and was quiet for a moment. "I guess that's as good a place to start as any," she murmured, and Lexa wasn't sure whether she was talking to herself or whether she was meant to respond. "Teach me your language. If there is to be understanding between us, we should understand each other's words first, right?"

"What you say means less than what you do," Lexa said. "But yes." She didn't know if the rest of the Trikru would like it, but Clarke had asked and she saw no reason to deny the request. If this was going to work, there could be no secrets between them.


End file.
